Glossary

Cloud Migration

Definition

Cloud migration is the process of moving applications, data, and IT infrastructure from on-premise servers or legacy hosting to a cloud platform such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud Platform. It includes re-hosting (lift-and-shift), re-platforming, re-architecting, and hybrid approaches.

In Detail

For DACH enterprises, cloud migration addresses key challenges: ageing on-premise infrastructure, rising maintenance costs, limited scalability, and disaster recovery gaps. A well-executed migration reduces infrastructure costs by 20-40%, improves uptime, and enables modern capabilities like auto-scaling, containerisation, and serverless computing. GDPR compliance remains critical — data residency in EU regions (Frankfurt, Zurich, Vienna) ensures regulatory adherence.

Business Use Case

A healthcare provider in Salzburg needed to migrate patient records from an ageing Windows Server cluster to a GDPR-compliant cloud environment. Dev House Austria designed a phased migration to AWS (Frankfurt region), implementing encrypted storage, automated backups, and role-based access. The migration reduced infrastructure costs by 35% and improved system availability from 99.5% to 99.99%.

FAQs

Q: Which cloud provider is best for Austrian companies?

Answer: AWS, Azure, and GCP all have data centres in the Frankfurt/EU region that meet GDPR requirements. AWS is most popular for startups and scale-ups; Azure suits enterprises already using Microsoft products; GCP excels in data analytics and AI workloads.

Q: How long does a cloud migration take?

Answer: Simple lift-and-shift migrations can complete in 4-8 weeks. Full re-architecture projects for complex enterprise environments typically take 3-6 months with phased rollouts.